Maverick Philosophertag:typepad.com,2003:weblog-17633292017-12-07T04:38:11-08:00Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains
Motto: Study everything, join nothing.
Selected for the The Times of London's 100 Best Blogs List (15 February 2009)
TypePadIs Anal Bleaching Racist?tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a010535ce1cf6970c01bb09ddee56970d2017-12-07T04:38:11-08:002017-12-07T04:39:35-08:00It would have to be, right? Logically prior question: what is anal bleaching? Filed under: Decline of the West Related articles Maverick Philosopher: Latest Georgetown University Outrage Is Canada Committing Cultural Suicide? Maverick Philosopher: Should There be University Courses on...Bill Vallicella

Latest Georgetown University Outragetag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a010535ce1cf6970c01b8d2badcb9970c2017-11-03T15:30:11-07:002017-11-03T15:34:28-07:00More proof that leftists are termites: Georgetown’s website proclaims it is “the oldest Catholic and Jesuit institute of higher learning in the United States” and is “deeply rooted in the Catholic faith.” One campus group is learning, however, Georgetown’s roots...Bill Vallicella

Georgetown’s website proclaims it is “the oldest Catholic and Jesuit institute of higher learning in the United States” and is “deeply rooted in the Catholic faith.” One campus group is learning, however, Georgetown’s roots might not be deep enough.

Love Saxa is a recognized student group on the Georgetown campus, and it exists “to promote healthy relationships on campus through cultivating a proper understanding of sex, gender, marriage, and family among Georgetown students.” Given the emphasis the Catholic Church puts on these issues (for example, see here and here), and Love Saxa’s alignment with church doctrine, one might believe it safe to assume Love Saxa is squarely within safe territory at a Catholic university.

But, oh, the perils of assumption. Love Saxa is in danger of being stripped of its status as an official student group. Its offense: holding to a Catholic view of human sexuality.

What can you do? Well, if you are a GU alumnus or alumna, make sure GU does not get one penny from you. When they call for a contribution, explain why you are withholding your donation.

You can't reason with termites, but money will get their attention.

Is Canada Committing Cultural Suicide?tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a010535ce1cf6970c01b7c92e1e52970b2017-10-27T05:26:42-07:002017-10-28T11:17:29-07:00William Kilpatrick is always good on the Islamist threat: The good news is that ISIS has been defeated in Mosul and Raqqa, and may soon be driven entirely out of Iraq and Syria. The bad news is that Islamists continue...Bill Vallicella

William Kilpatrick is always good on the Islamist threat:

The good news is that ISIS has been defeated in Mosul and Raqqa, and may soon be driven entirely out of Iraq and Syria. The bad news is that Islamists continue to pile up victory after victory on the home front.

The home front war is basically a culture war. Islamists are winning it because they understand the nature of the war. The West is losing because its leaders have only the vaguest awareness that they are under attack. Let’s take Canada as a case in point.

Should There be University Courses on Beat Generation Authors?tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a010535ce1cf6970c01bb09cff69c970d2017-10-23T05:12:16-07:002017-10-23T05:12:16-07:00From a longer essay: I've read my fair share of [William S. ] Burroughs and I concur [with Patrick Kurp] that his stuff is trash: Junkie, Naked Lunch, The Soft Machine, Exterminator. All in my library. But there is a...Bill Vallicella

I've read my fair share of [William S. ] Burroughs and I concur [with Patrick Kurp] that his stuff is trash: Junkie, Naked Lunch, The Soft Machine, Exterminator. All in my library. But there is a place for literary trash. It has its uses as do the pathologist's slides and samples. But put on your mental gloves before handling the stuff.

Kerouac alone of the Beat Triumvirate [Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Burroughs] moves me, though I surely don't consider him a great writer. In fact, I would go so far as to say that there really shouldn't be any university courses on Kerouac or Dylan or other culturally influential recent figures since their material is easily accessible and easily understandable. Universities ought not pander. They should remain -- or rather return to being -- institutions whose sacred task is the preservation and transmission of HIGH culture, great culture, culture which is not easily understood and requires expert guidance to penetrate and appreciate.

I am but a vox clamantis in deserto. You will be forgiven for thinking me a superannuated idealistic sermonizer out of touch with current events and trends. The West may be finished, and my preaching useless. The barbarians are at the gates and the destructive Left is eager to let them in. The authorities are in abdication. The Pope is a fool: a leftist first, a Catholic second. Leftist termites have rotted out the foundations of the universities.

On the other hand, it ain't over til it's over. So we battle on.

The Suicide of American Liberalismtag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a010535ce1cf6970c01b7c92a59dd970b2017-10-15T13:31:09-07:002017-10-15T13:36:00-07:00Robert Tracinski: The far left, under the banner of Black Lives Matter, is protesting a campus speaker again. Who is it this time? Some neo-Nazi like Richard Spencer? An unscrupulous provocateur like Milo Yiannopoulos? Just a garden-variety scary conservative like...Bill Vallicella

Robert Tracinski:

The far left, under the banner of Black Lives Matter, is protesting a campus speaker again. Who is it this time? Some neo-Nazi like Richard Spencer? An unscrupulous provocateur like Milo Yiannopoulos? Just a garden-variety scary conservative like Ben Shapiro? Nope, it’s the American Civil Liberties Union as represented by Claire Gastañaga, executive director of the ACLU of Virginia.

I have never hid my contempt for the ACLU. But at least we share some sliver of ground with that bunch of shysters. For they have at least some, albeit highly selective, respect for portions of the Constitution. The absurdly self-appellated Antifa thugs, however, will not abide the Constitution at all and absurdly opine that liberalism is white supremacy.

Here is one of my fulminations against the ACLU together with links to two other rather more measured pieces.

Will the Culture War Issue in Civil War?tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a010535ce1cf6970c01bb09cc7baf970d2017-10-12T05:11:41-07:002017-10-12T05:11:41-07:00John Davidson: [. . .] For all their shortcomings, conservatives at least have a limiting principle for politics. Most of them believe, for example, in the principles enshrined in the Constitution and maintain that no matter how bad things are,...Bill Vallicella

For all their shortcomings, conservatives at least have a limiting principle for politics. Most of them believe, for example, in the principles enshrined in the Constitution and maintain that no matter how bad things are, the Bill of Rights is a necessary bulwark, sometimes the only bulwark, against tyranny and violence. In contrast, here’s Timothy Egan of The New York Timesarguing unabashedly for the repeal of the Second and Fifth Amendments.

The rapid radicalization of Democrats along these lines follows a ruthless logic about the entire premise of the American constitutional order. If you believe, as progressives increasingly do, that America was founded under false pretenses and built on racial oppression, then why bother conserving it? And why bother trying to compromise with those on the other side, especially if they reject progressives’ unifying theory that America is forever cursed by its original sin of slavery, which nothing can expiate?

Before you scoff, understand that this view of race and America is increasingly mainstream on the American Left. To read someone like Ta-Nehisi Coates, whose recent article in The Atlantic is a manifesto of racial identity politics that argues Trump’s presidency is based on white supremacy, is to realize that progressive elites no longer believe they can share a republic with conservatives, or really anyone with whom they disagree.

Coates has attained near god-like status among progressives with his oracular writings on race and politics, which take for granted the immutability of race and racial animus. So it’s deeply disturbing when he writes, as he does in a new collection of essays, that “should white supremacy fall, the means by which that happens might be unthinkable to those of us bound by present realities and politics.”

What does Coates mean by that? It isn’t hard to guess, and lately Coates isn’t trying too hard to disguise it. In a recent interview with Ezra Klein of Vox, Coates expanded on this idea. Writes Klein:

When he tries to describe the events that would erase America’s wealth gap, that would see the end of white supremacy, his thoughts flicker to the French Revolution, to the executions and the terror. ‘It’s very easy for me to see myself being contemporary with processes that might make for an equal world, more equality, and maybe the complete abolition of race as a construct, and being horrified by the process, maybe even attacking the process. I think these things don’t tend to happen peacefully.’

This is the circuitous, stumbling language of man who knows precisely what he wants to say but isn’t sure if he should come right out and say it. Coates isn’t alone in feinting toward violence as a means—perhaps the only means, if Coates is to be taken at his word—of achieving social justice. On college campuses, progressive activists increasingly don’t even bother mincing words, they just forcibly silence anyone who disagrees with them, as a Black Lives Matter group did recently during an event featuring the American Civil Liberties Union at the College of William and Mary. (Ironically, the talk was supposed to be about students and the First Amendment.)

For a sincere progressive, almost everything that happened in the past is a crime against the present, and the only greatness America can attain is by repudiating its past and shaming—or silencing, if possible—all those who believe preserving our constitutional order is the best way for all of us to get along.

Seen in that light, the radicalization of Democrats is something qualitatively different, and much more dangerous, than the radicalization of Republicans. It means, among other things, that the culture war is now going to encompass everything, and that it will never end.

Hugh Hefner's Legacytag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a010535ce1cf6970c01b8d2b275c1970c2017-10-08T05:26:44-07:002017-10-08T05:26:44-07:00Here: Divorce, broken homes, bankruptcy, generations of children raised by a single parent, sexually-transmitted diseases, addiction, AIDs, early death, loneliness, despair, guilt, spiritual ruin, and 58 million innocent children butchered in the one place they should be safest, in their...Bill Vallicella

Divorce, broken homes, bankruptcy, generations of children raised by a single parent, sexually-transmitted diseases, addiction, AIDs, early death, loneliness, despair, guilt, spiritual ruin, and 58 million innocent children butchered in the one place they should be safest, in their own mother’s womb.

Read it all. I am not clear, however, how the libertarian opening coheres with the sequel.

The Problem: Gun Culture or Liberal Culture?tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a010535ce1cf6970c01b8d2b113d8970c2017-10-04T05:13:25-07:002017-10-04T05:17:37-07:00This is a repost, slightly redacted, from 2012 to help stem the tsunami of folderol washing over us from the orifices of the mindless gun-grabbing Left in the wake of the Las Vegas rampage. 'Liberal' is elliptical for 'contemporary liberal.'...Bill Vallicella

This is a repost, slightly redacted, from 2012 to help stem the tsunami of folderol washing over us from the orifices of the mindless gun-grabbing Left in the wake of the Las Vegas rampage. 'Liberal' is elliptical for 'contemporary liberal.' I am not speaking of classical, 19th century liberals or JFK-liberals. It is not 1960 anymore.

................

Without wanting to deny that there is a 'gun culture' in the USA, especially in the so-called red states, I would insist that the real problem is our liberal culture. Here are four characteristics of liberal culture that contribute to violence of all kinds, including gun violence. So if you want to do something, work against each of the following. But first look in the mirror to see if you are part of the problem.

It is interesting to note that Connecticut, the state in which the Newtown massacre occurred, has recently repealed the death penalty, and this after the unspeakably brutal Hayes-Komisarjevsky home invasion in the same state.

One of the strongest voices against repealing the death penalty has been Dr. William Petit Jr., the lone survivor of a 2007 Cheshire home invasion that resulted in the murders of his wife and two daughters.

The wife was raped and strangled, one of the daughters was molested and both girls were left tied to their beds as the house was set on fire.

The two men convicted of the crime, Joshua Komisarjevsky and Steven Hayes, are currently on death row.

Anyone who cannot appreciate that a crime like this deserves the death penalty is morally obtuse. But not only are liberals morally obtuse, they are intellectually obtuse in failing to understand that one of the main reasons people buy guns is to protect themselves from the criminal element, the criminal element that liberals coddle. If liberals were serious about wanting to reduce the numbers of guns in civilian hands, they would insist on swift and sure punishment in accordance with the self-evident moral principle, "The punishment must fit the crime," which is of course not to be confused with lex talionis, "an eye for an eye." Many guns are purchased not for hunting or sport shooting but for protection against criminals. Keeping and bearing arms carries with it a grave responsibility and many if not most gun owners would rather not be so burdened. Gun ownership among women is on the upswing, and it is a safe bet that they don't want guns to shoot Bambi.

2. Liberals tend to undermine morality with their opposition to religion.

Many of us internalized the ethical norms that guide our lives via our childhood religious training. We were taught the Ten Commandments, for example. We were not just taught about them, we were taught them. We learned them by heart, and we took them to heart. This early training, far from being the child abuse that A. C. Grayling and other militant atheists think it is, had a very positive effect on us in forming our consciences and making us the basically decent human beings we are. I am not saying that moral formation is possible only within a religion; I am saying that some religions do an excellent job of transmitting and inculcating life-guiding and life-enhancing ethical standards, that moral formation outside of a religion is unlikely for the average person, and that it is nearly impossible if children are simply handed over to the pernicious influences of secular society as these influences are transmitted through television, Internet, video games, and other media. Anyone with moral sense can see that the mass media have become an open sewer in which every manner of cultural polluter is not only tolerated but promoted. Those of use who were properly educated way back when can dip into this cesspool without too much moral damage. But to deliver our children over to it is the real child abuse, pace the benighted Professor Grayling.

The shysters of the American Civil Liberties Union, to take one particularly egregious bunch of destructive leftists, seek to remove every vestige of our Judeo-Christian ethical tradition from the public square. I can't begin to catalog all of their antics. But recently there was the Mojave Memorial Cross incident. It is absurd that there has been any fight at all over it. The ACLU, whose radical lawyers brought the original law suit, deserve contempt and resolute opposition. Of course, I wholeheartedly endorse the initial clause of the First Amendment, to wit, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion . . . ." But it is hate-America leftist extremism on stilts to think that the presence of that very old memorial cross on a hill in the middle of nowhere does anything to establish Christianity as the state religion. I consider anyone who believes that to be intellectually obtuse and morally repellent. One has to be highly unbalanced in his thinking to torture such extremist nonsense out of the First Amendment, while missing the plain sense of the Second Amendment, one that even SCOTUS eventually got right, namely, the the right to keep and bear arms is an individual, not a collective, right.

And then there was the business of the tiny cross on the city seal of Los Angeles, a symbol that the ACLU agitated to have removed. I could continue with the examples, and you hope I won't.

Our contemporary media dreckmeisters apparently think that the purpose of art is to degrade sensibility, impede critical thinking, glorify scumbags, and rub our noses ever deeper into sex and violence. It seems obvious that the liberal fetishization of freedom of expression without constraint or sense of responsibility is part of the problem. But I can't let a certain sort of libertarian or economic conservative off the hook. Their lust for profit is also involved.

What is is that characterizes contemporary media dreck? Among other things, the incessant presentation of defective human beings as if there are more of them than there are, and as if there is nothing at all wrong with their way of life. Deviant behavior is presented as if it is mainstream and acceptable, if not desirable. And then lame justifications are provided for the presentation: 'this is what life is like now; we are simply telling it like it is.' It doesn't occur to the dreckmeisters that art might have an ennobling function.

The tendency of liberals and leftists is to think that any presentation of choice-worthy goals or admirable styles of life could only be hypocritical preaching. And to libs and lefties, nothing is worse than hypocrisy. Indeed, a good indicator of whether someone belongs to this class of the terminally benighted is whether the person obsesses over hypocrisy and thinks it the very worst thing in the world. See my category Hypocrisy for elaboration of this theme.

4. Liberals tend to deny or downplay free will, individual responsibility, and the reality of evil.

This is connected with point (2) above, leftist hostility to religion. Key to our Judeo-Christian tradition is the belief that man is made in the image and likeness of God. Central to this image is that mysterious power in us called free will. The secular extremist assault on religion is at the same time an assault on this mysterious power, through which evil comes into the world.

This is a large topic. Suffice it to say for now that one clear indication of this denial is the bizarre liberal displacement of responsibility for crime onto inanimate objects, guns, as if the weapon, not the wielder, is the source of the evil for which the weapon can be only the instrument.

Should We Discuss Our Differences? Pessimism versus Optimism about Disagreementtag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a010535ce1cf6970c01b8d2af91d4970c2017-09-29T15:44:06-07:002017-09-29T15:44:06-07:00Our national life is becoming like philosophy: a scene of endless disagreement about almost everything. The difference, of course, is that philosophical controversy is typically conducted in a gentlemanly fashion without bloodshed or property damage. Some say that philosophy is...Bill Vallicella

Our national life is becoming like philosophy: a scene of endless disagreement about almost everything. The difference, of course, is that philosophical controversy is typically conducted in a gentlemanly fashion without bloodshed or property damage. Some say that philosophy is a blood sport, but no blood is ever shed, and though philosophers are ever shooting down one anothers' arguments, gunfire at philosophical meetings is so far nonexistent. A bit of poker brandishing is about as far as it gets.

Some say we need more 'conversations' with our political opponents about the hot-button issues that divide us. The older I get the more pessimistic I become about the prospects of such 'conversations.' I believe we need fewer conversations, less interaction, and the political equivalent of divorce. Here is an extremely pessimistic view:

I believe the time for measured debate on national topics has passed. There are many erudite books now decorating the tweed-jacket pipe-rooms of avuncular conservative theorists. And none as effective at convincing our opponents as a shovel to the face. But setting that means aside, there is no utility in good-faith debate with a side whose core principle is your destruction. The “middle ground” is a chasm. It is instead our duty to scathe, to ridicule, to scorn, and encourage the same in others. But perhaps foremost it is our duty to hate what is being done. A healthy virile hate. For those of you not yet so animated, I can assure its effects are invigorating.

Unfortunately, Stephens says things that are quite stupid. He says, for example, that disagreement is "the most vital ingredient of any decent society." That is as foolish as to say, as we repeatedly hear from liberals, that our strength lies in diversity. That is an absurdity bordering on such Orwellianisms as "War is peace" and 'Slavery is freedom." Our strength lies not in our diversity, but in our unity. Likewise, the most vital ingredient in any decent society is agreement on values and principles and purposes. Only on the basis of broad agreement can disagreement be fruitful.

This is not to say that diversity is not a value at all; it is a value in competition with the value of unity, a value which must remain subordinated to the value of unity. Diversity within limits enriches a society; but what makes it viable is common ground. "United we stand,' divided we fall." "A house divided against itself cannot stand."

Stephens goes on to create a problem for himself. Having gushed about how wonderful disagreement is, he then wonders why contemporary disagreement is so bitter, so unproductive, and so polarizing. If disagreement is the lifeblood of successful societies, why is blood being shed?

Stephens naively thinks that if we just listen to one another with open minds and mutual respect and the willingness to alter our views that our conversations will converge on agreement. He speaks of the "disagreements we need to have" that are "banished from the public square before they are settled." Settled? What hot button issue ever gets settled? What does Stephens mean by 'settled'? Does he mean: get the other side to shut up and acquiesce in what you are saying? Or does he mean: resolve the dispute in a manner acceptable to all parties to it? The latter is what he has to mean. But then no hot-button issue is going to get settled.

Stephens fails to see that the disagreements are now so deep that there can be no reasonable talk of settling any dispute. Does anyone in his right mind think that liberals will one day 'come around' and grasp that abortion is the deliberate killing of innocent human beings and that it ought be illegal in most cases? And that is just one of many hot-button issues.

We don't agree on things that a few years ago all would have agreed on, e.g., that the national borders need to be secured.

According to Stephens, "Intelligent disagreement is the lifeblood of any thriving society." Again, this is just foolish. To see this, consider the opposite:

Agreement as to fundamental values, principles and purposes is the lifeblood of any thriving society.

Now ask yourself: which of these statements is closer to the truth? Obviously mine, not Stephens'. He will disagree with me about the role of disagreement. How likely do you think it is that we will settle this meta-disagreement? It is blindingly evident to me that I am right and that he is wrong. Will he come to see the light? Don't count on it.

It is naive to suppose that conversations will converge upon agreement, especially when the parties to the conversations are such a diverse bunch made even more diverse by destrutive immigration policies. For example, you cannot allow Sharia-supporting Muslims to immigrate into Western societies and then expect to have mutually respectful conversations with them that converge upon agreement.

I am not saying that there is no place for intelligent disagreement. There is, and it ought to be conducted with mutual respect, open-mindedness and all the rest. The crucial point Stephens misses is that fruitful disagreement can take place only under the umbrella of shared principles, values, and purposes. To invert the metaphor: fruitful disagreement presupposes common ground.

And here is the problem: lack of common ground. I have nothing in common with the Black Lives Matters activists whose movement is based on lies about Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, and the police. I have nothing in common with Antifa thugs who have no respect for the classical traditions and values of the university. I could go on: people who see nothing wrong with sanctuary jurisdictions, with open borders, with using the power to the state to force florists and caterers to violate their consciences; the gun grabbers; the fools who speak of 'systemic racism'; the appeasers of rogue regimes . . . .

There is no comity without commonality, and the latter is on the wane. A bad moon is rising, and trouble's on the way. Let's hope we can avoid civil war.

Cultural Confidencetag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a010535ce1cf6970c01bb09c849d7970d2017-09-29T09:15:05-07:002017-09-29T09:19:00-07:00What we lack is not military might, but cultural confidence. The Left's long march through the institutions has been remarkably successful. I now hand off to Mark Steyn, Statue of Limitations.Bill Vallicella

What we lack is not military might, but cultural confidence. The Left's long march through the institutions has been remarkably successful.

Jordan Peterson and the Transgender Warstag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a010535ce1cf6970c01bb09c63afb970d2017-09-23T04:56:30-07:002017-09-23T05:10:17-07:00Things in Canada are worse than I thought. Their Pee-Cee brigades are even more insane than ours. Quotable (and quoted): At the University of Toronto, after receiving two written warnings, he [Jordan Peterson] has been in danger of losing his...Bill Vallicella

Things in Canada are worse than I thought. Their Pee-Cee brigades are even more insane than ours. Quotable (and quoted):

At the University of Toronto, after receiving two written warnings, he [Jordan Peterson] has been in danger of losing his job following his announcement that he would refuse to use the preferred gender pronouns of students and faculty who don’t identify with their biological gender, to the fury of radical transgender activists. The use of such pronouns is mandatory under a recently instituted Canadian law, Bill C-16. Peterson rejects the injunction on free speech grounds. ‘I’m not going to cede linguistic territory to post-modernist neo-Marxists,’ he says. He has expressed the view that he might use the preferred gender pronoun of a particular person, if asked by that individual, rather than having the decision foisted on him by the state.

Well, at least one Canadian has a pair of balls. The C-16 law is fucking insane if you will excuse my French.

Free speech is a core value for him — the core value — and one that is becoming increasingly pressing, most recently (as I write this) with the resignation of the Labour shadow minister Sarah Champion after she made remarks in the Sun about Pakistani sex gangs and ran foul of what was considered acceptable by the Labour leadership. That elements of the left have begun to label free speech as somehow a ‘right-wing’ value is particularly rattling (although such censorious thinking has a long history in radical left ideology).

Free speech a right-wing value? It's classically liberal.

‘If I can’t say what I think, then I don’t get to think, and if I can’t think then I can’t orient myself in the world, and if I can’t do that, then I’m going to fall into a pit and take everyone else with me,’ Peterson says.

Peterson has been saddled by some of his critics with the label ‘alt-right’, which he views as a ridiculous slander. He describes himself as a ‘classic British liberal’ who makes those on both the left and right uncomfortable. He supports socialised health care and the liberalisation of drug use, and is libertarian on most social issues.

‘Alt-right’ is certainly one of the most inaccurate pigeonholes you could imagine cramming him into. His heroes include Dostoevsky, Nietzsche, Freud, Jung, Orwell and Solzhenitsyn. He is a Christian, but more on the pattern of existential Christians such as Søren Kierkegaard or Paul Tillich than anything to be found in the Midwest Bible belt.

Peterson’s thought-crime is that he disagrees with the view of transgender activists that gender is a social construct and has no grounding in biology (although he is not opposed to transgender rights in general).

It is reasonable to hold that gender roles are in part socially contructed as long as you also hold that they are influenced by underlying biological realities. But if you say that gender is a social construct with no grounding in biology then you show that your contact with reality is minimal if not nonexistent. If your stupidity is a willed stupidity than I condemn you morally. People have a moral obligation to use their intellects properly.

There is a curious paradox here. Lefties who accuse global warming skeptics of denying reality and being anti-science themselves deny reality and are anti-science in their constructivist views of gender and race. The difference, of course, is that there is good reason to be skeptical of the global warming theses of the climate alarmists, but no good reason to doubt that gender and race differences are ultimately rooted in biological differences.

So why does his right to free speech trump a transgender activist’s right not to be offended? Why not just keep his thoughts to himself?

‘Because thoughts aren’t like that,’ he says. ‘People mostly think by talking. Not only do they think by talking, but they correct their thoughts by talking. If you deprive people of the right to think, then you doom them to suffering. You doom their stupidity of its right to die. You should allow your thoughts to be cast away into the fire — instead of you.’

His claims about gender — that women consistently differ, cross-culturally, from men on many of the Big Five personality traits identified by psychometric researchers — are, in psychology circles at least, not particularly controversial. These traits are Openness, Neuroticism, Conscientiousness, Extraversion and Agreeableness (each of these are technical definitions that are somewhat more precise and different in meaning to their casual usage as terms).

‘These traits are not social-cultural,’ says Peterson. ‘The evidence is crystal clear. As you make a country more egalitarian, the gender differences get larger. Most particularly, women are higher when it comes to Agreeableness — wanting everyone to get along, not liking conflict, compassionate, polite, self-sacrificing — and Neuroticism — higher in negative emotion and more responsive to grief and threat and punishment and isolation.’

Anyone with any experience of life knows that women as a group are more agreeable than men as a group. Why the hell do you think they are 'over-represented' among realtors? And anyone who is not stupid, or a leftist, knows that the statement two sentences back cannot be refuted by uncovering a covey of prickly, jack-booted dykes, or a convention of Walter Mitties.

The denial of what he considers these fundamental realities has led him to become an outspoken critic of mainstream academia.

‘The humanities in the universities have become almost incomprehensibly shallow and corrupt in multiple ways,’ he says. ‘They don’t rely on science because they are not scientifically educated. This is true particularly in sociology, where they mask their complete ignorance of science by claiming that science is just another mode of knowing and that it’s only privileged within the structure of the oppressive Eurocentric patriarchy. It’s appalling. We’re not having an intelligent conversation, we are having an ideological conversation.

Even climate science is ideologically infected to a very high degree.

‘Students, instead of being ennobled or inculcated into the proper culture, the last vestiges of structure are stripped from them by post-modernism and neo-Marxism, which defines everything in terms of relativism and power.’

His battle to defend the fundamental tenets of free speech against language control has meant he has had to pay a price. There are videos on YouTube showing disturbing confrontations between him and radical transgender activists.

An argument for concealed carry.

‘I’m very upset by the criticism — very, very upset,’ he says. ‘But I know what the consequences of failing to engage in the necessary conflict are — and those consequences are worse. To speak words that others told me to speak is to kowtow to a corrupt ideology and would break the part of me that is useful in the world.’

Peterson studied political science — notably 20th- century European totalitarianism — before taking up psychology. This has left him with a dark view of the path that collectivist thinking can lead you down. He is both astonished and puzzled that the crimes of Stalinism and Maoism have not received anything like the attention that has been given to the Nazi atrocities.

Students coming to his classes are often entirely unaware of the mass exterminations those systems of belief wrought during the 20th century — numerically greater than those perpetrated by the Nazis.

This ignorance, he believes, as a Jungian, is a real and present danger, since he considers that the Shadow (the dark part of oneself that has to be recognised and incorporated in order to produce a mature human being) needs to be acknowledged if it is not going to wreak havoc — and totalitarian pathology disguises its malevolence with declared good intentions.

‘We are all monsters and if you don’t know that, then you are in danger of becoming the very monster that you deny,’ he says.

Absolutely right. The Left's denial of this truth is perhaps their most fundamental error.

This belief is not a million miles from the Christian belief in original sin. Peterson’s Christianity is perhaps one of the most mysterious sides of his personality. His current deconstruction of The Bible grew out of his previous work in analysing the meaning of world myths and folk tales, a journey recorded in his book Maps of Meaning — The Architecture of Belief. This is a hefty and challenging work which opens with a quote befitting someone who has the demeanour of a prophet: ‘I will utter things which have been kept secret from the foundation of the world.’

His Christianity is also viewed through a Jungian lens. He points out that the INRI inscription on crucifixes also has a mystical meaning, apart from ‘King of the Jews’ — ‘Through fire all nature is renewed’. ‘Which means that in order to renew your soul, you have to die and be reborn repeatedly,’ he explains. Peterson’s world view includes a lot of respect for Taoism, which sees nature as a constant battle between order and chaos, and posits that without that struggle, life would be rendered meaningless.

Peterson is not, rather surprisingly, only a philosophical Christian. When I ask him whether he actually believes that Jesus physically rose from the dead, he is unable to answer.

‘The world is a very, very strange place,’ he says. ‘What we don’t know about consciousness and its relationship with the body, and time, and corporeality, and vulnerability — and death — would fill many books. I don’t understand the structure of being well enough to make my way through the complexities of the resurrection story. I don’t think it’s reasonable to boil it down to “do you or do you not believe it”. I don’t know the limits of human possibility. I am unwilling to rule out the possibility of life after death, the idea of universal redemption and the defeat of evil.’

This is close to my own view.

However, it is not his unorthodox Christianity that is responsible for Peterson’s immense online audience. It is gender. More than 90 per cent of his audience are men, which seems a pity since there is nothing particularly gender-specific about his teachings. Why the imbalance then? ‘Because these men’s stress levels are very high,’ he says. ‘I’m telling them something they desperately need to hear — that there are important things that need to be fixed up. I’m saying, “You guys really need to get your act together and you need to bear some responsibility and grow the hell up.”

‘The lack of an identifiable and compelling path forward and the denialism these kids are being fed on a daily basis is undoubtedly destroying them and that is especially true of the young men.’

At this point, to my astonishment, Peterson begins to weep. He talks through his tears for the next several minutes. ‘Every time I talk about this, it breaks me up,’ he says. ‘The message I’ve been delivering is, “Find the heaviest weight you can and pick it up. And that will make you strong. You’re not who you could be. And who you could be is worthwhile.”’

They’re so starving for that message. Young men are so desperate for a pathway that they are dying for it. And it’s heart-breaking and terrible that this idea has been kept from them. It is a malevolent conspiracy or ignorance to keep that from young men. Some of the young men who come to my lectures are desperately hanging on every word because I am telling them that they are sinful, and insufficient, and deceitful and contemptible in their current form, but that they could be far more than that, and that the world NEEDS THAT. This presents an ideal that can be approached and life without that is intolerable. It’s just meaningless suffering and that’s true if you have all the cake you can eat and all the girls you can have one-night stands with.’ Peterson composes himself. The tears are patently sincere — his sincerity probably defines him more than any other quality. It is rare to come across a public figure so lacking in artifice or conscious self-presentation.

Whether he will be finally destroyed by the forces that oppose him — which is entirely possible — or continue to gather followers at the current remarkable rate is open to question. He will be publishing a new book in January 2018, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos (Penguin Random House Canada) — and this may be what lodges him firmly in the popular imagination.

I have watched dozens of the videos Peterson has posted — they are addictive — and I am coming to the conclusion that I am probably watching one of the most important thinkers to emerge on the world stage for many years. Peterson is quite likely to find himself outshining the rogue Marxist Slavoj Zizek — whose concerns about free speech he shares — as the celebrity academic de nos jours.

But he is a more profound, charismatic and serious figure than Zizek and is almost certain to end up as a front-line warrior in the culture wars that continue to rumble across Western societies. One of his mottos is ‘Don’t apologise for what you think’ and there is no question of him backing down under pressure from his ideological critics. As such, he is either remarkably brave, irrepressibly stubborn or wilfully provocative. Whatever the case, he has become increasingly difficult to ignore — and whoever chooses to do so, whether out of partiality or prejudice, will deprive themselves of an intriguing intellectual journey.

Is There Any Stopping the Insanity Now?tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a010535ce1cf6970c01b8d2ab0326970c2017-09-16T11:26:31-07:002017-09-16T11:26:31-07:00The Joy of DestructionBill Vallicella

The Decline of the West Proceeds Apace: Reed Collegetag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a010535ce1cf6970c01bb09c0e4dd970d2017-09-07T04:39:41-07:002017-09-07T04:41:31-07:00I arise from a blissful session on the black mat, 3:10 - 4:00 AM, only to log on and find: Under pressure from student protesters, Reed College in Portland, Oregon is considering whether or not to continue requiring freshmen to...Bill Vallicella

I arise from a blissful session on the black mat, 3:10 - 4:00 AM, only to log on and find:

Under pressure from student protesters, Reed College in Portland, Oregon is considering whether or not to continue requiring freshmen to take a Western civilization course.

Once again, abdication of authority on the part of university admins. There is no coward like a university administrator. May they be treated rudely by the barbarians they enable. Suggestion to the thugs: take a page from China's Cultural Revolution and force the admins and profs to clean toilets.

Mitt Romney Defends Antifa!tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a010535ce1cf6970c01bb09bf2839970d2017-09-01T12:57:23-07:002017-09-01T13:13:30-07:00You already knew this, but just in case you missed it. Disgusting. TDS is claiming some distinguished victims. The Kristol Crack-up and the Mitt Meltdown. And let's not forget Milque-toast McCain.Bill Vallicella

You already knew this, but just in case you missed it. Disgusting. TDS is claiming some distinguished victims. The Kristol Crack-up and the Mitt Meltdown. And let's not forget Milque-toast McCain.

Antifa Thugs Ignorant of Contradiction?tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a010535ce1cf6970c01b8d2a62a1b970c2017-09-01T12:16:04-07:002017-09-03T04:16:04-07:00Jonathan Turley: At Berkeley and other universities, protesters have held up signs saying “F--k Free Speech” and have threatened to beat up anyone taking their pictures, including journalists. They seem blissfully ignorant of the contradiction in using fascistic tactics as...Bill Vallicella

At Berkeley and other universities, protesters have held up signs saying “F--k Free Speech” and have threatened to beat up anyone taking their pictures, including journalists. They seem blissfully ignorant of the contradiction in using fascistic tactics as anti-fascist protesters. After all, a leading definition of fascism is “a tendency toward or actual exercise of strong autocratic or dictatorial control.”

If there is a 'contradiction' involved here it is not logical but practical/pragmatic. In the terminology of the preceding entry, it is not an instance of logical inconsistency, but of inconsistency in the application of a principle or standard. If the principle is "It is wrong to employ fascist tactics," then the practical contradiction consists in the Antifa thugs' application of the principle to their enemies but not to themselves.

But then it dawned on me (thanks to some comments by Malcolm Pollack and 'Jacques' who cannot go by his real name because of the leftist thugs in the academic world) that there is no practical/pragmatic contradiction or double standard here. The Antifa thugs and their ilk operate with a single standard: do whatever it takes to win.

They don't give a rat's ass about consistency of any kind or the related 'bourgeois' values that we conservatives cherish such a truth. These values are nothing but bourgeois ideology the function of which is to legitimate the 'oppressive' institutional structures that the Marxist punks battle against.

When Turley says that the thugs "seem blissfully ignorant of the contradiction" he assumes that they accept the principle but have somehow failed to realize that they are applying it inconsistently. But that is not what is going on here. They don't accept the principle! They have nothing against fascist tactics if they can be employed as means to their destructive ends. But if the political authorities arrest them and punish them, as they must to maintain civil order, then they scream Fascism! and dishonestly invoke the principle.

Besides, they don't accept the meta-principle that one ought to be consistent in the application of principles.

It is a mistake to think that one can reach these people by appealing to some values we all supposedly share. "Don't you see, you are doing the very thing you protest against!" You can't reach these evil-doers in this way. You reach them by enforcing the law. At some point you have to start breaking heads. But that is not 'fascism,' it is law enforcement.

If the authorities abdicate, if the police stand idly by while crimes against persons and property are committed, then you invite a vigilante response. Is that what you want?

The "Fuck Free Speech" signs make it clear that the Antifa thugs do not value what we value. And because they do not share this classically liberal value, it is a mistake to say that they operate with a double standard: Free speech for me, but not for thee. They don't value free speech at all; what they value is winning by any means. If there are times and places where upholding free speech is a means to their ends, then they uphold it. But at times and in places where shutting down free speech is instrumentally useful, then they will shut it down.

It is right out of the Commie playbook. And just as a Nazi is not the cure for a Commie, a Commie is not the cure for a Nazi. The cure for both is an American steeped in American values.

The Real Threat is the Orwellian Antifatag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a010535ce1cf6970c01b8d2a45fec970c2017-08-27T13:13:24-07:002017-08-27T13:13:24-07:00Please read this important article. Excerpt: Yet, the media would have us believe that it is the white supremacist movement that is the real threat to our republic. Consider that most media estimates put the Antifa movement, largely built out...Bill Vallicella

Yet, the media would have us believe that it is the white supremacist movement that is the real threat to our republic. Consider that most media estimates put the Antifa movement, largely built out of the “Occupy” movement of 2008-2010, at more than 200,000 members. The Southern Poverty Law Center, on the other hand, puts the number of Klu Klux Klan members at about 6,000 KKK …in a country of almost 330 million. But actions speak volumes compared to mere numbers.

The vandalized statue of Christopher Columbus? Antifa. The statue torn down in Charlotte, N.C.? Antifa. The violence in Charlottesville? Antifa. The violence in Seattle? Antifa. Not excusing the vile nature of the white supremacist protest, but it was a licensed march that remained comparatively nonviolent, albeit troubling, until, as one eyewitness described it, “It started raining balloons filled with urine, feces, paint, burning chemicals & boards with nails driven into them.”

[. . .]

Increasingly, the violence we are seeing on the streets is not the result of the alt-right movement, but of the Antifa movement imposing their views on our society: tearing down statues, burning the American flag, shutting down town hall meetings, destroying private property and looting. All of it tactical toward achieving the goals of destroying the American culture, society and economy. Never mind that the tactics are themselves the tactics of the fascist.

Yet, the likes of CNN and the New York Times and Washington Post spend much of their time touting the alt-right threat. Why? A couple of reasons. First, most mainstream media types are philosophically inclined toward anti-establishment organizations from the start; they see little wrong with crypto-fascist violence if the stated goals are in line with their own values systems.

Santa Monica and St. Monicatag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a010535ce1cf6970c01b7c919e26d970b2017-08-27T05:16:53-07:002017-08-27T05:16:53-07:00The California city is named after the Catholic saint, the mother of St. Augustine. Her feast day is today, 27 August. Now bring before your mind all of the wonderful place-names of Christian provenience. Do we have a plan to...Bill Vallicella

The California city is named after the Catholic saint, the mother of St. Augustine. Her feast day is today, 27 August.

Now bring before your mind all of the wonderful place-names of Christian provenience. Do we have a plan to stop the barbarians when they, as they inevitably will, begin defacing, destroying, and re-naming?

Islam and the (Destruction of the) Artstag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a010535ce1cf6970c01bb09b2753c970d2017-08-07T11:22:05-07:002017-08-09T10:36:34-07:00Here: Which brings us back to the arts. Among the things that Islam finds offensive are paintings, statues, mosaics, music, and song. The destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas, and the razing of the Roman temples and arches in Palmyra are...Bill Vallicella

Which brings us back to the arts. Among the things that Islam finds offensive are paintings, statues, mosaics, music, and song. The destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas, and the razing of the Roman temples and arches in Palmyra are just the most recent in a long line of vandalism that stretches back to Muhammad. According to culture critic Hugh Fitzgerald, “the greatest destruction of art in the history of the world is that wrought by Muslims on the art (architecture, artifacts), sacred and profane, of non-Muslim civilizations.”

Thanks to resurgence of militant Islam we seem to have entered a new era of iconoclasm. And it’s not just the arts that are being attacked, but also the people who patronize them. There have been a number of terror attacks against tourists at the ancient Egyptian Karnak Temple near Luxor. In 2015, gunmen killed 19 people at the Bardo Museum in Tunis. In 2002, 40 to 50 armed Chechen Islamists took 850 hostages during a musical theatre production at Moscow’s Dubrovka Theater. The three-day siege ended with the death of 130 hostages including 17 members of the cast and one-third of the orchestra. More recently, we’ve seen the jihad attack on the Bataclan theatre in Paris which resulted in the death of 130 people, many of whom were also mutilated, and the jihad attack on an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, England which left 22 dead.

For all their antipathy to the arts, jihadists have an almost Hitchcockian sense of dramatic locations: the Temple of Karnak, the Bardo Museum, the Dubrovka Theatre, the Bataclan Theatre, the World Trade Center. They haven’t gotten around yet to Mt. Rushmore and the Albert Hall, but it’s quite likely that both are already on some jihadis to-do list. Fortunately, the authorities have discerned the pattern, and have begun to beef up security around museums and monuments. Nowadays, if you want to visit the Louvre or the Rijksmuseuem, you have to tiptoe around police and soldiers carrying automatic weapons. Many artists like to advertise their work as transgressive and even dangerous. That’s becoming literally true, though presumably not in the ways that the artists intended. When you go to a concert or a museum these days, there is indeed a heightened element of danger.

It would be a mistake, however, to think that armed jihadists are the only danger to the arts and music. The other danger comes from Islamic culture itself and from the non-violent spread of that culture into Western societies. The trend has been referred to as “Islamization” and also as “stealth jihad.” For my own part, I prefer the term “cultural jihad” because at this point the advance is far from stealthy. The reason that citizens of the West don’t see the cultural takeover in progress is that they don’t want to see it. And they don’t want to see it because they don’t know what to do about it. Some of those who do see what’s happening think the trend toward Islamic dominance is unstoppable. Here’s economist Peter Smith in Quadrant:

Tolerant societies in these politically correct times have no feasible way of countering intolerance when it is practiced and preached by a minority religion ready to claim victimhood at the drop of a hat. I entertained the thought that it could, but it can’t be done.

Whether or not the trend is irreversible remains to be seen, but the trend has not been toward assimilation (as so many had hoped), but toward cultural conquest. And as Islamization continues, it will have a profound effect on the arts. Because where Islamic beliefs and laws advance, the arts retreat.

It’s not just a matter of hostility to the arts, but indifference to them. Although some Muslim immigrants to Europe will acquire a taste for Chopin and Renoir, most will ignore the symphony halls and the art museums altogether. As the population continues to shift in the favor of Islam, those museums that manage to stay open will have to emphasize non-representational Islamic art and put the Renoirs in cold storage. As for the concert halls, many will die a slow death. Mark Steyn puts it this way:

When the demography changes, there will be no concert halls. Artists who take a multicultural view should be aware of this. Count the number of covered women in London’s West End. In Birmingham, where I went to high school, you have a provincial symphony orchestra in a Muslim city—I’m not sure it will survive. All art, all popular culture is endangered by Islam, because there’s no room for it.

Although Birmingham won’t be a Muslim majority city for another twenty years or so, Steyn is right about the general trend. And he’s right about the unawareness of “artists who take a multicultural view.” Those in the arts community who blindly celebrate diversity constitute, in effect, a fifth column that facilitates the invasion of Western society by an anti-arts culture.

One has to wonder if they really love the arts or if they are more in love with the idea of being thought exceedingly tolerant and open-minded. People who love something are usually willing to fight to defend it. But there’s scant evidence that the arts community will fight to preserve the culture they have inherited.

There are exceptions, of course. The aforementioned Mark Steyn is one of them. By profession, Steyn is a music critic who specializes in writing about composers of popular music such as Cole Porter, Jule Styne, and Dorothy Fields. Yet shortly after 9/11 Steyn branched out to political and cultural criticism with a particular emphasis on criticism of Islam and the lackluster Western response to its inroads. Why the foray into politics? As Steyn puts it, “The point of politics is to free up time for what really matters”—which in his case is music.

Another counter–jihadist who would rather be doing something else is Ned May. He is the director of Gates of Vienna, a website devoted to discussing the dangers of Islamization, both in America and Europe. Writing under the pen name Baron Bodissey, May produces a daily supply of knowledgeable and well-crafted columns. Yet his real passions are landscape painting and music. In a piece about Bach’s choral prelude, “O Lamn Gottes unschuldig,” he writes “[Bach’s music] is one of the principal motives behind my choice to continue the struggle against the Great Jihad. The music of J.S. Bach represents the apotheosis of the human spirit, and will remain such even as the civilization that created it turns to dust.”

He continues: “There is no ideology in this [the music]… But ideology may well destroy it. Just as there are no longer any Buddhas at Bamiyan … there may come a day when all the pipes lay strewn across the paving stones of a shattered building, with no more fingers to race across the keyboards nor feet to tap the pedals. That is one of the main reasons why I do what I do: so that this shall not pass from the face of the earth.”

As they are willing to fight to preserve the music they love, Steyn and May deserve to be thought of as genuine music lovers. I’m not so sure that the same can be said for those artists who rush to defend every diversity under the sun, but have little regard for the culture that produced Bach, Beethoven, and Cole Porter. Are they in love with art or are they more in love with a currently fashionable but ultimately destructive ideology about cultural diversity—one that will spell the death of art and music?

A Toxic Culturetag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a010535ce1cf6970c01bb081a49c7970d2017-06-16T16:48:46-07:002017-06-16T16:48:46-07:00A toxic culture it is in which lack of self-discipline is promoted, self-indulgence of every sort is encouraged, self-reliance and individual responsibility are ridiculed, everything becomes a disease or addiction, big government is promoted as the solution to every problem,...Bill Vallicella

A toxic culture it is in which lack of self-discipline is promoted, self-indulgence of every sort is encouraged, self-reliance and individual responsibility are ridiculed, everything becomes a disease or addiction, big government is promoted as the solution to every problem, and the right to free expression is misused to spread hate and incite violence.

Nazis Hid Their Crimes; Islamists Exult in Theirstag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a010535ce1cf6970c01b7c9016db4970b2017-06-11T12:04:04-07:002017-06-11T12:06:34-07:00By Kevin Myers. The Sunday Times, 11 June 2017. Via Karl White who provided me with the text and who tells me that "Kevin Myers is one of Ireland's most controversial writers." The 'purple passages' are by your humble correspondent....Bill Vallicella

By Kevin Myers. The Sunday Times, 11 June 2017. Via Karl White who provided me with the text and who tells me that "Kevin Myers is one of Ireland's most controversial writers." The 'purple passages' are by your humble correspondent.

......................................

A suicide bomber attacking a concert for little girls is a little earlier in the curve of depravity than I’d expected. But a nurse being cut to pieces as she minded the injured on London Bridge — at this point in the descent into the abyss, perfectly predictable. The Nazis hid their crimes. These people exult in theirs, knowing that the path to a moral nadir is paved with the public glorification of the most revolting violence. It is also paved with passivity, excuses and equivalence from the host communities.

When that stalwart sceptic of the virtues of mass immigration, Mark Dooley, was invited on The Late Late Show 12 years ago, there awaiting him were those grandees of PC sanctimony, Fintan O’Toole and Shalini Sinha, with the usual taunts. Not long afterwards when I put my toe into these same waters, the then Michael D Higgins TD issued a statement through the Labour Party. “The Irish Times, through Kevin Myers, has, once again, reached the sewer level of journalism . . . The contents of his column today go far beyond his usually crafted cowardice . . .”

Post-Hitlerian European societies have done something almost unprecedented in human history. They have mobilised their cultural defences not against outside threats but against those antibodies that are trying to protect them: almost the sociopolitical equivalent of Aids. Indeed, until very recently, being “racist” or an “Islamophobe” carried a far greater cultural taboo than did seeking to destroy the homogeneity or tranquillity of a society. Hence the crushing silence in Germany that greeted Angela Merkel’s treasonable decision two years ago to admit a million Muslim migrants.

The hijab — the full facial veil — is a public refutation of the norms of our society. After the shocking events across Europe over the past year, it should be taboo. Instead, it is becomingly increasingly common in Ireland, and any attempt to outlaw it would probably be denounced as “racist” — a meaningless term in this context, but no matter: the purpose of language here is not to achieve clarity but moral superiority. As (the now) President Higgins keeps telling us, Islam is a religion of peace.

BV: Myers may be confusing the hijab with the niqab. According to this source, the niqab, not the hijab, is a full facial veil (except for the eyes).

Nevertheless, there is something offensive about Muslims' refusal to assimilate. I myself would have no objection to a female head covering that leaves the whole of the face visible if it were not for the fact that Islam is far and away the main source of terrorism in the world at the present time. If not for that terrible fact, I would support the right to free expression within reasonable limits. But the terrible fact cannot be gainsaid.

And of course there is nothing 'racist' about opposing Muslim manners and mores. You would have to be very stupid not to know that Muslims do not constitute a race of people. So why do leftists sling the 'racist' slur? Because for a leftist it is the smear that matters above all. Hence it doesn't matter at all if the smear has no substance.

Moreover, the Irish media will do almost anything to promote the notion that there is a rough equilibrium between Islamic and anti-Islamic violence. So RTE News reported at length on Wednesday on the shocking affair of a stone being thrown at a mosque in Galway. Yes, a stone actually being hurled at a building, and now live, over to our Galway correspondent: actually, no-one hurt, no-one even hit — but otherwise, goes the implicit message, it’s really six of one and half a dozen of the other. (Was this the same mosque where a couple of years ago, an RTE reporter repeatedly and pontifically addressed the imam as “Your Holiness”?)

BV: Parity of victimhood!

No doubt this parity of victimhood is being promoted to prevent young Muslims being “radicalised”, as the expression goes. An interesting concept, this “radicalisation”. A radicalised Presbyterian turns purple and thunders about Popery. A radicalised Catholic attends five Tridentine Masses a day, bawling out loud in Latin while mainlining on incense. A radicalised member of the Church of Ireland will say that you’re probably right when you say there is no God, but evensong is jolly anyway. A radicalised member of the Church of England has two lumps of sugar in her tea, and yes, perhaps even a second fairy-cake. A radicalised Jew beats the bejayus out of his forehead against the Wailing Wall. And a radicalised Muslim?

BV: The man knows how to write.

You see? We’re using words differently, aren’t we? As we must, tip-toeing round the ecumenical garden wherein all religions are held to be equal, the only differences being stylistic. So, naturally, we ignore the poll ICM conducted for Channel 4 last year which revealed 20% of British Muslims approved of the 07/07 bombings in London,which killed 52 people and maimed many hundreds, and that two thirds of them would not report an Islamic terrorist threat to the authorities. Lovely. Lovelier still is that the figures for young Muslims are far, far worse.

BV: One of the puzzles here is how leftists can be so stupid or self-enstupidated. Or maybe they just have a death wish. Do they really think that they, with their pronounced 'libertine wobble,' as I like to call it, which includes their penchant for the unusual and 'transgressive' in matters sexual, will be spared if the sharia supremacists get the upper hand?

We now know that multiculturalism doesn’t produce artistically enriching fusions but, instead, volitional apartheid. In Britain, immigrants have created autonomous Islamostans, often ruled by sharia law and even by the barbaric knife of FGM. There are many dazzling aspects to this, but perhaps the most wonderful has been the utter silence of British feminists, as hundreds — and perhaps thousands — of underage white girls have been groomed and raped by Muslim men, and uncountable numbers of Islamic girls circumcised.

BV: 'FGM' abbreviates 'female genital mutilation' which includes the cutting or removal of the labia and clitoris.

Dazzling but not puzzling since most feminists are hard-core leftists.

So how have we in Ireland responded to the experiences of other countries? Have we said: “No, we will not go that way: we are clever enough to learn”? Of course not! Our political classes have been falling over themselves to proclaim the innocence and the Irishness of Ibrahim Halawi, without asking the larger and more obvious questions about what precisely was he doing in Egypt, and what is the relationship between his family and the Muslim Brotherhood.

Jesus, whom European societies have traditionally revered (until we began instead to worship The New Blessed Trinity of Secularism, Gay Rights and the Welfare State) urged us to turn the other cheek, and suggested that maybe he who was without sin might cast the first stone. Mohammed was a little less wobbly. He had 600 Qurayzah Jewish captives, mostly pubescent boys and men, but also one woman, beheaded. And queers? Why, stone ‘em to death. So how can anyone seriously maintain that two religions based on the words and deeds of such utterly different men are in any way comparable?

It’s probably futile saying this, so powerful is the “anti-racism”, “anti- Islamophobe” mob of prating, Christianity-hating liberals, but I believe that we have no historic choice but to seriously restrict the numbers of Muslims moving to Ireland. Furthermore, facial covering should be rigorously outlawed in all public transport, taxis, schools, colleges, banks and EVERY government building. If the enforcement of such measures means a departure from the EU with its toxic and unreal human rights edicts, so be it.

BV: I salute you, sir. You have what we call here in the Southwest of the USA, cojones, testicular fortitude. Of course you are right. A moratorium or at least a severe restriction on immigration from Muslim lands together with a demand that all immigrants from wherever assimilate and show respect for the host culture is absolutely essential. And obviously no covering of faces in public. That's just common sense.

But also you have to do constant battle with the leftist scumbags who work, wittingly or not, in cahoots with the Islamist invaders.

Jesus preceded Mohammed by six centuries, while Patrick preceded him by two. That wretched, broken entity, “Europe”, might have forgotten its origins: that doesn’t mean we should forget ours."

BV: You need a leader like Trump with the independence and courage to name the threat and act against it, and an outfit like the National Rifle Association. I heard that some bobbies on London Bridge during the attack were armed only with batons. Are the Brits insane?

Isn't the Rope Too Long?tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a010535ce1cf6970c01b8d28870b6970c2017-06-01T11:10:17-07:002017-06-01T11:30:35-07:00"Isn't the rope too long?" I wrote to the man who sent me the graphic a sinistra. He replied, " The idea is the tree will grow and eventually be tall enough to hang him." "I got that," said I....Bill Vallicella

"Isn't the rope too long?" I wrote to the man who sent me the graphic a sinistra.

He replied, " The idea is the tree will grow and eventually be tall enough to hang him."

"I got that," said I. "But trees grow slowly and there's a lot of rope that has to hoisted before the man is hanged. Although Islam's threat to the culture of Europe is not imminent, it is not far in the future either.

So I say the rope is too long!"

In battling our ideological and existential enemies, all methods must be employed, including cartoons, jokes, mockery, derision, and tweets. You have to make them look ridiculous and 'uncool.' The young and immature are inordinately impressed by what is 'cool' and what is not. So we need comics like Dennis Miller and polemicists like Kurt Schlichter whose name for Hillary is 'Felonia von Pant-Suit.' That is perhaps more effective than the more accurate but brutal 'Crooked Hillary.'

Learned disquisitions and carefully crafted arguments are necessary but insufficient. You have to get the attention of the masses besotted and benumbed by the ever-present wash of media dreck.

Memo to George F. Will, et al.: it's about saving the West from its main internal threat, leftism, and its main external threat, radical Islam. It's not about gentlemanly conversations about Edmund Burke over good brandy and fine cigars in well-appointed drawing rooms while Rome burns.

More Proof that 'Liberals' are Morally Retardedtag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a010535ce1cf6970c01b7c8fe1a41970b2017-06-01T04:58:12-07:002017-06-01T04:58:12-07:001) JPod on Kathy Griffin. It is not just Griffin who is at fault here, but every 'liberal' who contributes to an environment in which the sorry Griffin can get away with her vile stunt, at least initially. The nadir...Bill Vallicella

1) JPod on Kathy Griffin. It is not just Griffin who is at fault here, but every 'liberal' who contributes to an environment in which the sorry Griffin can get away with her vile stunt, at least initially. The nadir of cultural decline is still a ways off yet, however: CNN fired the sick comedienne.

2) Did you know that a pre-natal human being is a tough little object hard to dismember? Here:

In the new video, which is a compilation of excerpts from video filmed at the trade shows, abortionist Dr. Susan Robinson of Planned Parenthood Mar Monte is heard saying, “The fetus is a tough little object and, taking it apart, I mean taking it apart on day one is very difficult.”

Dr. Lisa Harris, medical director of Planned Parenthood Michigan, is also heard saying, “Let’s just give them all the violence, it’s a person, it’s killing, let’s just give them all that.”

Director of abortion services for Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast Dr. Ann Schutt-Aine states in the video, “If I’m doing a procedure, and I’m seeing that I’m in fear that it’s about to come to the umbilicus [navel], I might ask for a second set of forceps to hold the body at the cervix and pull off a leg or two, so it’s not PBA [partial-birth abortion].”

One irony here is that feminists protest, legitimately, against 'objectification.' But if the girl is young enough, then she is a "tough little object" the objectification of which can legally take the form of literal dismemberment.

If you voted for Hillary, you are complicit in this and also in the further moral outrage of using tax dollars to fund it.

What if you voted for neither Hillary not Trump? I'll leave that for you to think about.

Warning to 'Liberals'tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a010535ce1cf6970c01b7c8fdbf2d970b2017-05-31T04:45:16-07:002017-06-01T04:18:42-07:00There is a line such that if you cross it you will have hell to pay. A lot of people think like Kurt Schlichter: I know it’s theoretically wrong for a Republican candidate to smack around an annoying liberal journalist,...Bill Vallicella

There is a line such that if you cross it you will have hell to pay. A lot of people think like Kurt Schlichter:

I know it’s theoretically wrong for a Republican candidate to smack around an annoying liberal journalist, but that still doesn’t mean that I care. Our ability to care is a finite resource, and, in the vast scheme of things, millions of us have chosen to devote exactly none of it toward caring enough to engage in fussy self-flagellation because of what happened to Slappy La Brokenshades.

Sorry, not sorry.

And that’s not a good thing, not by any measure, but it is a real thing. Liberals have chosen to coarsen our culture. Their validation and encouragement of raw hate, their flouting of laws (Hi leakers! Hi Hillary!) and their utter refusal to accept democratic outcomes they disapprove of have consequences. What is itself so surprising is how liberals and their media rentboyz are so surprised to find that we normals are beginning to feel about them the way they feel about us – and that we’re starting to act on it. If you hate us, guess what?

The Lou Reed Ruckustag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a010535ce1cf6970c01b7c8fc7d62970b2017-05-27T04:59:36-07:002017-05-27T05:05:28-07:00Can one take a walk on the wild side in a safe space? Apparently not. Related articles The Decline of the West Proceeds Apace A Case Against Withdrawal The Age of Feeling or the Age of Pussies?Bill Vallicella

Will the Second Civil War Turn Violent?tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a010535ce1cf6970c01bb099a1578970d2017-05-10T19:34:36-07:002017-05-10T19:34:36-07:00It may well if the authorities do not cease their abdication.Bill Vallicella

Is Cultural Optimism Justified?tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a010535ce1cf6970c01b8d28040ed970c2017-05-08T05:14:44-07:002017-05-08T05:14:44-07:00Malcolm Pollack argues in the negative. I wish I could disagree. I am tempted to quote from Malcolm's beautifully written entry, but it's all good, so bang on the link. He is open for comments.Bill Vallicella

Malcolm Pollack argues in the negative. I wish I could disagree. I am tempted to quote from Malcolm's beautifully written entry, but it's all good, so bang on the link. He is open for comments.

Potemkin Universitiestag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a010535ce1cf6970c01b7c8f5ad49970b2017-05-07T05:41:15-07:002017-05-07T11:49:14-07:00The universities are dead. Victor Davis Hanson: At most universities, if a scheduled campus lecturer expressed scholarly doubt about the severity of man-caused global warming and the efficacy of its government remedies, or questioned the strategies of the Black Lives...Bill Vallicella

At most universities, if a scheduled campus lecturer expressed scholarly doubt about the severity of man-caused global warming and the efficacy of its government remedies, or questioned the strategies of the Black Lives Matter movement, or suggested that sex is biologically determined rather than socially constructed, she likely would either be disinvited or have her speech physically disrupted. Campuses often now mimic the political street violence of the late Roman Republic.

Campus radicals have achieved what nuclear strategists call deterrence: Faculty and students now know precisely which speech will endanger their careers and which will earn them rewards.

The terrified campus community makes the necessary adjustments. As with the German universities of the 1930s, faculty keep quiet or offer politically correct speech through euphemisms. Toadies thrive; mavericks are hounded.

The true maverick, I should think, abandons the leftist seminaries and strives to keep the noble ancient values alive in some other way.

Texting Their Lives Away?tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a010535ce1cf6970c01b7c8f57d28970b2017-05-06T13:14:13-07:002017-05-06T13:21:57-07:00I am currently reading, among other things, Kevin Mitnick, The Art of Invisibility, Little, Brown & Co., 2017. A treatise on cyber-security, it strikes me as slightly alarmist, but Steve Wozniak recommends it. I don't have to tell you who...Bill Vallicella

I am currently reading, among other things, Kevin Mitnick, The Art of Invisibility, Little, Brown & Co., 2017. A treatise on cyber-security, it strikes me as slightly alarmist, but Steve Wozniak recommends it. I don't have to tell you who he is. The following, however, caught my eye and pricked my philosopher's skepticism:

A recent study found that 87 percent of teenagers text daily, compared to the 61 percent who say they use Facebook, the next most popular choice. Girls send, on average, about 3,952 text messages per month, and boys send closer to 2,815 text messages per month, according to the study. (pp. 72-73)

Could this be right? If you divide 31 into 3,952 you get 127.48. So is the average girl sending that many text messages per day? I don't believe it.

The number of text messages sent or received by cell phone owning teens ages 13 to 17 (directly through phone or on apps on the phone) on a typical day is 30.5 The number of messages exchanged for girls is higher, typically sending and receiving 40 messages a day. And for the oldest girls (15 to 17), this rises to a median of 50 messages exchanged daily.

And notice that the Pew figure is for messages sent and received, while Mitnick speaks only about messages sent.

So how much credibility does Mitnick have? This little spot check of mine suggests that he slapped his book together rather quickly. But there is plenty to be learned from it.

We all need to slow down, unplug, and look at things.

One of my aphorisms gives good advice:

How to Look at Things

Look at them as if for the first time -- and the last.

A Broad Coalition of the Sanetag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a010535ce1cf6970c01b7c7a53b7c970b2017-05-05T05:49:41-07:002017-05-05T05:49:41-07:00In a comment thread I wrote, We need a broad coalition of the sane which would include many libertarians, the few liberals who haven't lost their minds, and most conservatives, with each subgroup tempering its own tendency toward extremism. Malcolm...Bill Vallicella

In a comment thread I wrote,

We need a broad coalition of the sane which would include many libertarians, the few liberals who haven't lost their minds, and most conservatives, with each subgroup tempering its own tendency toward extremism.

Malcolm Pollack responded:

I used to hope for this, and believe it was possible, but now, to my sorrow, I just can't see how it is ever going to happen. With every passing day, and every tick of the demographic clock, we move faster and faster in the opposite direction, and I can see in America today nothing even remotely resembling a coherent political opposition on the Right. As I wrote in my letter to you, I think we have slipped past the 'event horizon', and all future timelines now must pass through the singularity. What form that will take, and what will come after, I can barely imagine -- but I don't think it will be pleasant for anyone.

This was before the election of Trump. I wonder if Mr. Pollack is a bit more optimistic now.

Multi-Racial but not Multi-Culturaltag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a010535ce1cf6970c01b7c8e3a531970b2017-05-05T05:40:14-07:002017-05-05T12:11:02-07:00The USA cannot help but be a multi-racial society, but if we cannot agree on a common culture for public purposes with English as its official language and the values of the founding documents as its foundation, then the end...Bill Vallicella

The USA cannot help but be a multi-racial society, but if we cannot agree on a common culture for public purposes with English as its official language and the values of the founding documents as its foundation, then the end is in sight. But collapse takes time and those of us in our mid-60s, assuming we don't live too long, should be able to weather the storm without too much stress.

Unfortunately, we no longer have the collective will to demand the assimilation without which immigration is a recipe for Balkanization. Any sane person should be able to see that the values of Sharia are incompatible with American values, and that no Muslims should be allowed to immigrate who are unwilling to accept and honor our values.

But it may already be too late since we don't even have the 'logically prior' collective will to put a stop to illegal immigration and the flouting of Federal immigration law by so-called 'sanctuary' cities and other jurisdictions. First stop illegal immigration, then worry about assimilation in connection with legal immigration.

Once more: improper entry into the country is already a violation of the criminal code. When the mayor of a great city, New York, refuses to deport illegal aliens who commit such serious felonies as driving while intoxicated, then you know that there is precious little common ground left.

We cannot agree on this? Then what can we agree on?

We conservatives can blame ourselves to some extent. We lost ourselves in our private lives while the destructive Left had its way.

Paradoxically, our appreciation that the political is a limited sphere has left us at a disadvantage over against leftists for whom the political is the only sphere.

The Main Internal Threat: The Lefttag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a010535ce1cf6970c01bb0996c7df970d2017-05-01T13:37:56-07:002017-05-01T13:37:56-07:00If radical Islam is the main external threat to the republic, the main internal threat is the contemporary Left. Excerpts from Ben Stein: The nation’s universities have become no-go zones for people who do not hew to the one-party, anti-American,...Bill Vallicella

If radical Islam is the main external threat to the republic, the main internal threat is the contemporary Left. Excerpts from Ben Stein:

The nation’s universities have become no-go zones for people who do not hew to the one-party, anti-American, anti-police, anti-business attitudes of the violent brownshirts. Quiet, scholarly geniuses like Charles Murray and Heather Mac Donald — who dare to suggest that Americans should work for a living, who speak out in defense of the police — are shouted down, shoved, sometimes assaulted, and chased from campuses under guard. Ann Coulter — a long-time friend, staggeringly intelligent and amusing — is not permitted to speak at a University of California, Berkeley, campus, because she makes such witty, shining defenses of our great nation. This is a taxpayer-funded campus.

There’s an atmosphere of terror on campuses across the country. My beloved law school alma mater, mighty Yale, shamed itself recently by blackballing faculty who wanted to keep a sense of humor on the campus.

The formula is simple. Get a few nonwhite students to label a potential speaker a racist, whether or not there is the slightest evidence he or she is. Then bring in the looney left faculty, then bring in the women with fake charges of sexism, and soon you have a mighty avalanche against the speaker. The fascists call themselves anti-fascists, of course. But anyone with eyes and ears can see and hear who’s burning the books.

As far as I know, neither Hitler nor the Japanese ever planned to invade America. Certainly Vietnam didn’t. North Korea is a menace, but a poverty-stricken nation of 22 million is not going to subjugate us and take away our freedom.

They don’t have to. We’ve done it to ourselves on our campuses. Via our imbecile young people and their pawns and masters in the faculties, we have incinerated the First Amendment. We’ve made sure that our young learn only lies and subversive propaganda against America. Hitler had his storm troopers to silence the opposition. We have Black Lives Matter, which aims to emasculate the main force guarding black lives — the police — and which is always in the vanguard at closing down free speech. It’s a catastrophe for this country. It’s not what our young men and their parents fought for, died for, and wept for in The War. Look quick. We’re losing this war for freedom — and fast.

Is the Benedict Option the Answer to Neo-Barbarianism?tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a010535ce1cf6970c01bb09897538970d2017-03-29T14:15:57-07:002017-03-29T14:15:57-07:00Read it.Bill Vallicella

Responses to Rod Dreher's The Benedict Optiontag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a010535ce1cf6970c01b7c8e36ee6970b2017-03-23T05:53:09-07:002017-03-23T05:55:56-07:00A tip of the hat to Karl White for sending us to Nine Most Intelligent Takes on Rod Dreher's The Benedict Option. I haven't yet read the book, though it ought to be arriving today. (What sort of 'ought' is...Bill Vallicella

Nor have I read the above-linked responses. So I don't know whether they are the most intelligent or if they are all, or even any of them, intelligent. You decide.

Keep Calm and Ostrichize Ontag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a010535ce1cf6970c01bb09869ef4970d2017-03-23T05:13:58-07:002017-03-23T05:13:58-07:00George Neumayr's piece begins: In 2006, Melanie Phillips wrote a book called Londonistan: How Britain Is Creating a Terror State Within. She argued that Britain was a sitting duck for Islamic terrorists, owing to its idiotic embrace of political correctness,...Bill Vallicella

In 2006, Melanie Phillips wrote a book called Londonistan: How Britain Is Creating a Terror State Within. She argued that Britain was a sitting duck for Islamic terrorists, owing to its idiotic embrace of political correctness, multiculturalism, and religious relativism.

And ends:

Keep calm and propagandize on — that’s the attitude in Sadiq Khan’s London, where terrorism, as he put it last year, some months after his election as mayor, is “part and parcel of living in a big city.”

Khan's attitude is defeatist. Was terrorism "part and parcel of living in a big city" twenty years ago? There are plenty of stateside defeatists too, and some call themselves 'conservative.' But we got lucky last November and the deplorable Hillary went down in defeat, and with her the then-regnant mentality of Barack Hussein Obama.

It may be too late for the UK and Europe. But it is not too late for us.

The New Monastics of the Mindtag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a010535ce1cf6970c01b7c8e2aa4d970b2017-03-21T06:03:40-07:002017-03-21T06:03:40-07:00My man Hanson with another fascinating column. Excerpts: Monasteries of the mind are an effort to reconnect with the past and disengage psychologically from the present. For millions of Americans, their music, their movies, their sports, and their media are...Bill Vallicella

Monasteries of the mind are an effort to reconnect with the past and disengage psychologically from the present. For millions of Americans, their music, their movies, their sports, and their media are not current fare. Instead, they have mentally moved to mountaintops or inaccessible valleys, where they can live in the past or dream of the future, but certainly not dwell in the here and now.

Count me in. (I have also been known to hole up physically in inaccessible valleys for weeks at a time.) But why? Several reasons, one of them being the lamestream media:

Monastics are tuning out the media. Listening to Brian Williams warn of fake news would be like paying attention to Miley Cyrus’s reminder about the need for abstinence. New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, who is often said to be the ethical conscience of the paper’s op-ed page, recently begged the IRS to commit a felony by sending him Trump’s tax returns. He went so far as to provide his own address to facilitate the crime: “But if you’re in IRS and have a certain president’s tax return that you’d like to leak, my address is: NYT, 620 Eighth Ave., NY NY 10018.”

Someone belatedly might have gotten the message. Rhodes scholar Rachel Maddow got a hold of two pages from Trump’s 2005 tax return. On MSNBC she went the full Roswell-UFO mode in hyping the scoop until she finally grasped that a twelve-year-old-tax return revealed that her Trump-as-Snidely-Whiplash had paid a greater tax (percentage-wise and absolutely) than “you didn’t build that” Barack Obama paid. Such an inadvertent demonstration is not the purpose for which a Rachel Maddow was hired.

If Paul Krugman can win the Nobel prize, and Bill Clinton and Rachel 'Mad Dog' Maddow are Rhodes Scholars, then those awards have become well-nigh meaningless.

Middlebury Shouts Down Charles Murraytag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a010535ce1cf6970c01b7c8dcf5d2970b2017-03-05T05:09:11-08:002017-03-06T05:43:42-08:00Here: It’s been exactly 40 years since my late wife and I quit as English profs at Middlebury College, where hundreds of screaming students wouldn’t allow Charles Murray, one of the nation’s foremost conservative intellectuals, to speak to them yesterday,...Bill Vallicella

It’s been exactly 40 years since my late wife and I quit as English profs at Middlebury College, where hundreds of screaming students wouldn’t allow Charles Murray, one of the nation’s foremost conservative intellectuals, to speak to them yesterday, as a campus conservative group had invited him to do.

NeverTrumpers and Others Losing their Minds and Morals Over Trumptag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a010535ce1cf6970c01b8d262fb70970c2017-02-21T11:46:39-08:002017-02-21T11:46:39-08:00Victor Davis Hanson: Former Weekly Standard editor in chief Bill Kristol suggested in a tweet that if he faced a choice (and under what surreal circumstances would that happen?) between the constitutionally, democratically elected president and career government officials’ efforts...Bill Vallicella

Former Weekly Standard editor in chief Bill Kristol suggested in a tweet that if he faced a choice (and under what surreal circumstances would that happen?) between the constitutionally, democratically elected president and career government officials’ efforts to thwart or remove him, he would come down on the side of the revolutionary, anti-democratic “deep state”: “Obviously strongly prefer normal democratic and constitutional politics. But if it comes to it [emphasis added], prefer the deep state to the Trump state.” No doubt some readers interpreted that as a call to side with anti-constitutional forces against an elected U.S. president.

Other false stories claimed that Trump had pondered invading Mexico, that his lawyer had gone to Prague to meet with the Russians, and that he had removed from the Oval Office a bust of Martin Luther King Jr. — sure proof of Trump’s racism. Journalists — including even “fact-checker” Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post — reposted fake news reports that Trump’s father had run a campaign for the New York mayorship during which he’d aired racist TV ads.

'Understand' is a Verb of Successtag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a010535ce1cf6970c01bb097842c9970d2017-02-12T10:07:56-08:002017-02-12T10:07:56-08:00Here I encountered the following sentence: However, most people understand their side is good and the opposing side is bad, so it’s much easier for them to form these emotional opinions of political parties. This sentence features a misuse of...Bill Vallicella

However, most people understand their side is good and the opposing side is bad, so it’s much easier for them to form these emotional opinions of political parties.

This sentence features a misuse of 'understand.' 'Understand' is a verb of success. If you understand something, then it is the case. For example, if you understand that both 2 and -2 are square roots of 4, then this is the case. Otherwise there is a failure to understand. 'Understand' in this respect is like 'know' and unlike 'believe' or 'think'. My knowing that p entails that p is true. My believing or thinking that p does not entail that p is true. My understanding that my side is good entails that it is. The above sentence should read as follows:

However, most people THINK their side is good and the opposing side is bad, so it’s much easier for them to form these emotional opinions of political parties.

Not necessarily, says Taubes, who suggests that the ad hoc societal test of the low-carb solution lacks certainty. “If you understand beyond a shadow of a doubt that your disease is caused by sugar and flour and refined carbohydrates,” he says, “you are more likely to adhere to a diet that cuts them out.”

Some will say that usage changes, to which I will reply: no doubt, but not all change is change for the better.

Call me a prescriptivist if you like, but don't confuse me with a school-marm prescriptivist. If you end a sentence with a preposition, I won't draw my weapon. For that is a piece of pedantry up with which I shall not put!

On the Value of Twitter as a Research Tooltag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a010535ce1cf6970c01b7c8cff11c970b2017-01-30T04:29:44-08:002017-01-30T04:30:49-08:00George Will: In 2013, a college student assigned to research a deadly substance sought help via Twitter: "I can't find the chemical and physical properties of sarin gas someone please help me." An expert at a security consulting firm tried...Bill Vallicella

In 2013, a college student assigned to research a deadly substance sought help via Twitter: "I can't find the chemical and physical properties of sarin gas someone please help me." An expert at a security consulting firm tried to be helpful, telling her that sarin is not gas. She replied, "yes the (expletive) it is a gas you ignorant (expletive). sarin is a liquid & can evaporate ... shut the (expletive) up."

The Central Dividing Line in American Politicstag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a010535ce1cf6970c01bb096fbe72970d2017-01-22T04:08:00-08:002017-01-22T11:29:21-08:00Here: [Samuel] Huntington is most famous for arguing in The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order that the post-Cold War world would not be defined by the universalization of liberal values but by ethnic frictions within nations...Bill Vallicella

[Samuel] Huntington is most famous for arguing in The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order that the post-Cold War world would not be defined by the universalization of liberal values but by ethnic frictions within nations and civilizational clashes between them (the most volatile fault lines, he said, were between the West and Islam and the West and China). Even more prescient, at least as far as the United States is concerned, was Huntington’s 2004 book, Who Are We?, which described “nationalism versus cosmopolitanism” as the central dividing line in American politics, with immigration as its focal point.

Huntington identified two forms of cosmopolitanism—neoconservatism, popular on the right, which promised to bring America’s values to the world, and multiculturalism, popular on the left, which promised to bring the world’s values to America—both of which he attacked as destructive and unsustainable. The 2016 election campaign was one long demonstration of how right Huntington was, and how blind were his liberal and neoconservative critics who had no idea of the forces building in American politics.

The neocon mistake was to imagine that our superior system of government could be imposed on benighted and backward peoples riven by tribal hatreds and depressed by an inferior religion. The folly of that should now be evident. One cannot bomb the benighted into Enlightenment.

The mistake of the multi-culti cultural Marxists is to imagine that comity is possible without commonality, that wildly diverse sorts of people can live together in peace and harmony. Or at least that is one mistake of the politically correct multi-cultis.

Along comes Trump. Whatever you think of the man and his ostentation, self-absorption, slovenly speech, occasional feel-ups of members of the distaff contingent, and all the rest, he is a powerful vehicle of a necessary correction away from both forms of cosmopolitanism/globalism toward a saner view.

Donald J. Trump, the somewhat unlikely vehicle of a necessary correction. Without course correction the cliff is up ahead to be approached either by Donkey Express (Hillary) or more slowly but just as surely by Elephant (Jeb! and colleagues).

So how does the Left respond? In their usual vile and thoughtless way by the hurling of such epithets as sexist, Islamophobic, xenophobic, racist, fascist . . . you know the litany. According to Chris Mathews of MSNBC, Trump's inaugural speech was "Hitlerian."

The alacrity with which these leftist bums reach for the Hitler comparison shows the poverty of their 'thought.'

Addendum. Tony Bevin writes:

In your post you write:

The neocon mistake was to imagine that our superior system of government could be imposed on benighted and backward peoples riven by tribal hatreds and depressed by an inferior religion. The folly of that should now be evident. One cannot bomb the benighted into Enlightenment.

This is of a mind with Milton Friedman's observation about the Euro. He noted that one cannot impose a common currency that is not supported by a common political will [emphasis added by BV]and gave the Euro 10 years before it became extinct.

I think he (and you above) are correct. Friedman may have only been wrong about the timeline. By the way, the Euro, which consistently traded at about $1.33 is now down to the $1.02-$1.05 range and Deutsche Wealth management expects it to be about $0.85 toward the end of this year. With Brexit, Italexit and other countries beginning to discuss the possibility of leaving the EU, is the beginning of the end near? We shall see.

How to Age Disgracefully in Hollywoodtag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a010535ce1cf6970c01b7c8c5a077970b2017-01-09T04:51:40-08:002017-01-09T04:51:40-08:00Camille Paglia on Madonna Louise Ciconne: Madonna's opening line at the awards gala was edited out of the shortened official video: "I stand before you as a doormat — oh, I mean a female entertainer." Merciful Minerva! Can there be...Bill Vallicella

Madonna's opening line at the awards gala was edited out of the shortened official video: "I stand before you as a doormat — oh, I mean a female entertainer." Merciful Minerva! Can there be any woman on Earth less like a doormat than Madonna Louise Ciccone? Madonna sped on with shaky assertions ("There are no rules if you're a boy") and bafflingly portrayed the huge commercial success of her 1992 book, Sex, as a chapter of the Spanish Inquisition, in which she was persecuted as "a whore and a witch."

C.P. is often a good antidote to P. C., not that that I would award Miss Paglia the much-coveted plenary MavPhil endorsement.

Cultural Suicide tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a010535ce1cf6970c01b8d24f6df6970c2017-01-09T04:32:17-08:002017-01-10T04:57:38-08:00Yet another example. (HT: Karl White) "University students demand philosophers such as Plato and Kant are removed from syllabus because they are white." The Telegraph title isn't even grammatical. The stupid demand is that these greats BE removed. Has England...Bill Vallicella

Yet another example. (HT: Karl White) "University students demand philosophers such as Plato and Kant are removed from syllabus because they are white."

The Telegraph title isn't even grammatical. The stupid demand is that these greats BE removed. Has England declined so far that its journalists can no longer write or speak correct English and must take instruction from an American blogger?

Demands refer to future events. I can demand that you leave my house, but I can't demand that you not have entered it, or that you are leaving it. I could of course demand that you continue the process of removing your sorry ass from my premises, but that too is a future-oriented demand.

I demand that you are stopping to be a willfully stupid leftist and that you are removed from my presence!

UPDATE (1/10). Horace Jeffery Hodges comments,

I think the statement is British English:

"University students demand philosophers such as Plato and Kant are removed from syllabus because they are white."

American English requires a subjunctive form:

I demand that they be removed . . .

This is one of the things I dislike about British grammar.

I don't know. I may be wrong, and Jeff may be right. In any case, it makes no bloody sense to use the present tense to refer to a future event. It is in the nature of a demand that it point us to the future for its satisfaction or the opposite. There is more to grammar than usage; there is also logic broadly construed. But then I am something of a prescriptivist. The distinction between singular and plural, for example, is logical and good grammar respects it.

Correct: A polite chess player thanks his opponent for the game, whether he wins or loses.

Incorrect: A polite chess player thanks their opponent for the game, whether they win or lose.

What about this: A polite chess player thanks her opponent for the game, whether she wins or loses.

I argued years ago that if 'his' can be correctly used gender-neutrally, then so can 'her.' And this despite the fact that in 'standard English usage' (admittedly a tendentious phrase) 'his' but not 'her' can be so used. Lydia McGrew got her knickers in a knot over this, thinking that I had succumbed to political correctness. This goes to show that for some conservatives one can never be too conservative. The least little concession to liberals shows that one has 'sold out.'

But more important than quibbling over language is defeating the Left and the contemptible shitheads who would remove Plato and Kant from the curriculum.

What these cranially-feculent morons fail to grasp is that really to understand their own crack-brained POMO ideology, they would have to study Kant. Kant's defensible constructivism was part of the set-up for their indefensible constructivism. Besides, you need Kant to understand Hegel, and Hegel Marx, and Marx the Frankfurt School . . . .

Barbarians Within the Gatestag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a010535ce1cf6970c01b8d24cf839970c2017-01-02T15:59:33-08:002017-01-02T16:08:27-08:00Robert Royal: Some European newspapers have reported lately – very quietly – that, according to police in Germany’s North Rhineland/ Westphalia region, from 2011 to 2016 there were 3500 cases of vandalism/desecration of Christian churches. About two per day in...Bill Vallicella

Some European newspapers have reported lately – very quietly – that, according to police in Germany’s North Rhineland/ Westphalia region, from 2011 to 2016 there were 3500 cases of vandalism/desecration of Christian churches. About two per day in only one region of Germany, every day for the past five years.

That's the bad news. The good news is that Trump defeated Hillary who would have continued Obama's ostrichism.

Change and hope for 2017!

Royal again:

We, of course, can coexist with Muslims who want to coexist with us. But the presence of jihadists – essentially an amorphous armed force within our society – is going to drive us quite close to religious tests for entry into the country and perhaps more.

Royal is assuming that Islam is a religion like any other. Not so. It is a hybid religious-political ideology that promotes values inimical to the West and its flourishing. Sharia and the West do not mix. Muslim immigration ought to be curtailed because of Muslims' destructive Sharia-based political values. They have no right to come here, and we have no obligation to let them in. There is no net benefit to their immigration when you factor in the destruction, which is not merely physical, wrought by jihadis. The Europeans are learning this the hard way. May they learn their lesson well.

No one should be allowed to immigrate who is not prepared to assimilate.

No comity without commonality.

While diversity is good, it is good only up to a point. A diversity worth wanting presupposes a unity of shared principles.

A good part of the problem here is the silly liberal conceit that 'deep down' we are all the same and want the same things. False! There really are crazies ought there who want to disembarrass you of your head because you differ with them on some abstruse point of theology. Leftists, who cannot take religion seriously, think that no one else really takes it seriously either so that what motivates terrorists are things like "lack of jobs" as the foolish Obama once said. A very stupid form of projection!

The Trials and Tribulations of Anthony Esolentag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a010535ce1cf6970c01bb09661164970d2017-01-02T14:52:20-08:002017-01-02T14:52:20-08:00"Because of recent events at the school where I teach, Providence College, I have come to see that the winning side of the so-called culture wars has no interest in rational or equable conversation about the neuralgic issues of our...Bill Vallicella

"Because of recent events at the school where I teach, Providence College, I have come to see that the winning side of the so-called culture wars has no interest in rational or equable conversation about the neuralgic issues of our time." Here.

Defund the bastards, I say. It does no good to speak truth to power when those in power believe only in it and not in truth.

Malcolm Pollack's Kulturpessimismustag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a010535ce1cf6970c01bb09627dde970d2016-12-21T15:17:20-08:002016-12-21T15:52:41-08:00I hope he is wrong, but I fear he is right: Europe is very, very, ill, a victim of a weak but highly opportunistic pathogen, and if it cannot soon mount a robust immune response it will die. Even if...Bill Vallicella

Europe is very, very, ill, a victim of a weak but highly opportunistic pathogen, and if it cannot soon mount a robust immune response it will die. Even if it can manage such a response, at this late hour it will be a close-run thing — and we have already passed the point, I think, where it can recover without some very serious “unpleasantness”. But the choice is now very plain: awaken or die.

Most likely it will die, I think. (Already there are calls to close down the traditional Christmas-markets for the sake of security. This is what late-stage cultural immunodeficiency looks like.)

When a nation forgets her skill in war, when her religion becomes a mockery, when the whole nation becomes a nation of money-grabbers, then the wild tribes, the barbarians drive in.

– John Howard

I wonder: when the last native Europeans have dwindled to a final few, and they are forced to watch one another put to the sword, will they worry, most of all, about an anti-Muslim “backlash”? Will they wonder, in that moment, how things might have been if they had stood for themselves — and then say, just as they are annihilated, “But that’s not who we are”?

The Message of Visible Tattoostag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a010535ce1cf6970c01bb095e3cb2970d2016-12-11T04:28:30-08:002016-12-11T16:44:55-08:00All visible tattoos deliver the same message: I am not interested in being hired for any position that involves interacting with the public. Tattoos on the neck and face deliver the message in capital letters. Time was when tattoos were...Bill Vallicella

All visible tattoos deliver the same message: I am not interested in being hired for any position that involves interacting with the public. Tattoos on the neck and face deliver the message in capital letters.

Time was when tattoos were found mainly only among the demimonde of grifters, members of outlaw motorcycle gangs, rough trade, a certain segment of merchant seamen, and other denizens of the dark side.

I tend to take a dim view of tattoos, seeing them as the graffiti of the human body, and as yet another, perhaps minor, ingredient in the Decline of the West. Christians who believe that the body is the temple of the Holy Spirit ought to consider whether tattoos deface the temple. But I do not dogmatize on this topic. You can reasonably attack my graffiti analogy, and if you insist that tattoos are beautiful, not ugly, I won't be able to refute you. Or at least I won't be able to persuade you.

If you argue that there is no, or needn't be, a connection between tattoos and cultural decline, you may have a case. You might even be able reasonably to maintain that the bodily temple is sometimes beautified by judicious inking. Leviticus 19:28 forbids the practice, but that text does not settle the matter. I tend to think that fascination with the ugly and grotesque does not ennoble us. The connection between the aesthetic and the moral needs to be explored.

But I celebrate the liberty of the individual and tolerate the tattooer and the tatttoed.

I only advise caution: permanent or semi-permanent modifications of the mortal coil are to be made only after due deliberation. You might want to consider such things as: the signal you're sending, your future employability, and, for the distaff contingent, how ugly that tattoo will look on your calf when you are 45 as opposed to 20 and the ink is cheek-by-jowl with varicose veins and cellulite. Cute baristas in hip huggers with tattoos on their lower backs bending over the espresso machine invite impertinent questions as to how far down the pattern extends. "Does it come up the other side?"

If you are thinking of a career in public relations, a bone through the nose is definitely out, as are facial hardware and a Charley Manson-style swastika tattooed onto the forehead. And if you sport a 'tramp stamp,' keep it covered.

Something you allude to, but don’t completely address, is the allure of fashion, and its strange nature. Fashion has a lifetime of at most ten years, usually in a way that what once conferred stature and gravitas turns into the ludicrous. Fortunately we can discard clothes, and change our hairstyle. This is more difficult with tattoos.

I.e. it’s not just that the tattoo will look ugly when the ink is ‘cheek-by-jowl with varicose veins and cellulite’. It’s that it will look ugly and ridiculous in itself.

I haven’t seen any theory that neatly explains the transformative power of time over fashion. Those of us who are older and have been through a few cycles of such changes are aware of it, and are somewhat, though not completely, impervious to it. It is philosophically challenging. How can the very same thing turn almost into its exact opposite? Moreover, when you look at what is now most ridiculous about the fashion, it was the very thing which in a bygone era was the most fascinating and important.

Some things do not date, and perhaps that is the essence of great art. I also think writing dates much slower. I mean, you can read Strawson or Moore and you don’t have a strong sense that it was written 50 or 100 years ago. Then you look at pictures of the writers, and they look quite silly in tweeds or glasses or smoking a pipe.

Fascinating questions. Why are people swayed in their sartorial choices by what is clearly ridiculous and non-functional? Ghetto blacks strutting around in baggy cargo shorts hanging half-way off their butts; women prancing in high heels; stout lesbians stomping around in work boots at a poetry reading; Beltway boys in their bow ties. The absurd corsets and bustles of yesteryear. Statement-making and sexual signaling are part of what's going on.

The Opponent seems to be suggesting that tattoos will go out of fashion and come to look ridiculous. I don't know.

The Decline of the Universitiestag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a010535ce1cf6970c01b7c8b35472970b2016-11-24T03:41:23-08:002016-11-24T03:41:23-08:00From Plato to Play-Doh. From Higher Education to Higher Infantilization. The decline of the universities is the decline of the West. The Left has a lot to answer for.Bill Vallicella

From Plato to Play-Doh.

From Higher Education to Higher Infantilization.

The decline of the universities is the decline of the West.

The Left has a lot to answer for.

Who's Deplorable Now?tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a010535ce1cf6970c01b8d239230b970c2016-11-13T10:32:42-08:002016-11-13T10:32:42-08:00Members of the party of 'tolerance' and 'inclusion' go on the rampage as captured in this collection of videos. Trump won fair and square despite all the chicanery of the Dems. Now just as most Muslims are not terrorists, most...Bill Vallicella

Members of the party of 'tolerance' and 'inclusion' go on the rampage as captured in this collection of videos.

Trump won fair and square despite all the chicanery of the Dems. Now just as most Muslims are not terrorists, most Dems are not street anarchists. But the latter constitute a significant subset of Dems. What does it say about them that they breed elements who reject the very system of government that allowed for Obama's accession to power for two disastrous terms?

'Interesting' days up ahead. Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst.

Trump Wins, and the Left Goes Bonkerstag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a010535ce1cf6970c01b7c8aec052970b2016-11-11T11:26:50-08:002016-11-11T11:26:50-08:00Here is the delusional Paul Krugman soiling, once again, the already piss-poor Op-Ed pages of The New York Times. His title is the hyperventilatory "Thoughts for the Horrified." The political damage will extend far into the future, too. The odds...Bill Vallicella

Here is the delusional Paul Krugman soiling, once again, the already piss-poor Op-Ed pages of The New York Times. His title is the hyperventilatory "Thoughts for the Horrified."

The political damage will extend far into the future, too. The odds are that some terrible people will become Supreme Court justices. States will feel empowered to engage in even more voter suppression than they did this year. At worst, we could see a slightly covert form of Jim Crow become the norm all across America.

Terrible people? Voter suppression? Jim Crow? This is crazy stuff, beneath reply. And Krugman's outburst is no isolated incident. Lefties can't seem to grasp that we reject their ideas and policies and that we have good grounds for doing so.

And then we have the leftist punks clogging the highways and byways. What are they protesting? The proper functioning of a democratic republic in which a bloodless transfer of power has occurred? The brainwashed punks have no legitimate grounds for protest. They simply don't like the outcome.

But we conservatives didn't like the outcome when Obama beat Romney in 2012. I don't recall any right-wing gangs in the streets protesting. Yet another difference between the Left and the Right. Perhaps now you understand why I often refer to the Left as destructive.

The Left's long march through the institutions has been successful. We now have hordes of young people with no understanding of the greatness of America. The punks have been brainwashed, and we conservatives can blame ourselves for retreating into our private lives and not battling the Marxist cultural termites early on.

But the focus on what really matters, the private, is of the essence of conservatism, and so it is our conservative attitude that unfits us for battle with the totalitarians of the Left who work to destroy the institutions of civil society.